auditory image
- noun
- /ɔːˈdɪtəri ˈɪmɪdʒ/
- Specialized
:
imagen auditiva
- When he imagined his favorite song, he created an auditory image that felt just as vivid as the real sound.
Examples
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As he read the poem, he formed an auditory image of the gentle waves lapping against the shore.
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In her mind, the auditory image of the thunderstorm brought back memories of cozy nights indoors.
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Auditory images are "heard" with the mind's ear in a context; that is, we associate every image with the context in which it was formed.
Academic text (2006) -
If the listener's head turns to face a talker, the auditory image remains constant, as it does in real life.
Academic text (1999)
Synonyms
1
6.7
An idea in your mind that stands for something you remember or imagine
1
8.5
A way of hearing music or words inside your head
The ability to hear music in your mind without any real sound
How Vivid
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'auditory' restricts the modality to hearing and 'image' denotes a mental representation, so together they denote a mental representation of a sound. This construction is predictable and cross-linguistically transparent (e.g. Spanish 'imagen auditiva'), so a B1 learner who knows both words should be able to infer the meaning despite the phrase being somewhat more technical.
Etymology
Auditory image comes from the simple idea of hearing a sound inside your head: auditory means hearing and image means a picture. So an auditory image is like a 'sound picture' in your 'mind', and that's why it means imagining a 'sound' as if you actually hear it.